RAMALLAH Ñ Israel has assassinated a Palestinian leader close to Yasser Arafat.

Abu Ali Mustafa, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was killed in an Israeli missile attack on his office in the West Bank city of El Bireh. Three other Palestinians were killed in the attack, attributed to Israeli aircraft, on Monday.

Mustafa was said to have ordered at least six car bomb attacks in Israeli cities over the last six months. Syria's official radio station interrupted its scheduled program to report extensively on the assassination.

The PFLP leader was regarded as a key Palestinian ally of Syria and succeeded George Habash, the founder of the PFLP who remains in Damascus. Mustafa arrived in the West Bank in 1999 after PA Chairman Arafat pledged to Israel that the PFLP leader would end his involvement in anti-Israeli attacks.

Mustafa's office is located near Arafat's PA headquarters in Ramallah. Arafat was not in the city during the Israeli missile strike.

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